Alan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.

Friday, May 17, 2013

The Worst President Ever

By Alan
Caruba

All
through George W. Bush’s two terms, the Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and
others claimed that they represented “a culture of corruption” and yet I cannot
recall any significant examples, nor does a look back at those years reveal any
scandals resulting from his administration’s governance. It was not perfect,
but it was not corrupt.

This charge,
however, marked Barack Obama’s first term and now his second which is currently
imploding from a confluence of scandals involving Benghazi-Gate, the Internal
Revenue Service, and the Department of Justice. Let’s not forget “Fast and
Furious.”

The very
first example of the changes that would mark his administration was the
announcement of Obama’s “czars”, a shadowy group of advisors whose power to set
and influence government policy without any congressional oversight appears to
have transcended that of his cabinet members, many of whom would contribute to
lengthening the recession he “inherited” as the result of the 2008 financial
crisis while increasing the national debt and deficit to heights never before
seen in the history of the nation.

What we
have come to learn in his first term was that Obama had scant regard for the
Constitution, the guiding instrument of governance. It was in his view an “imperfect”
instrument and yet, with amendments, it has guided the nation to superpower
status since its ratification in 1791, a process that took four years from the
1786 Annapolis Convention that called for a Constitutional Convention.

What we
learned through his first campaign and first term was that Obama lies about
everything, starting with his personal life. What we have learned is that his
answer to everything is to give another speech, hold another press conference,
issue another executive order, and to dismiss any criticism as “a sideshow”,
and to host a number of dinners to give the impression he is willing to work
with Republicans in Congress. In truth, he rarely interacted even with
Democrats in Congress.

In short,
Obama has never addressed his duty to govern. He has instead maintained a
non-stop process of campaigning and fund-raising. It did not work in 2010 when
voters returned power to the Republicans in the House and now he is doing
everything he can to regain Democrat control there in 2014.

His
priority on September 11, 2012, the night in which he was informed of the
attack on the Benghazi consulate in Libya, was to go to bed in order to get a
good night’s sleep before flying off to Las Vegas for more fund-raising the
next day, skipping his daily intelligence briefing. An American ambassador had
been killed along with three other personnel, but it did not alter his
schedule.

This is a
President who spent his entire first term blaming his predecessor, George W.
Bush, for every problem that crossed his desk and demanded his attention.

This is a
President whose foreign policy in the Middle East failed to address events
there while delegating responsibility to his Secretary of State, Hillary
Clinton who as of 2 AM the morning of September 12th knew that it
was an orchestrated attack by al Qaeda. And then, in concert with the White
House, told Americans that it was the result of a video and was a “spontaneous”
event.

This is a
President who has withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq, a nation now wracked with
daily bombings and has set in process the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a nation
that will fall once again under the control of the Taliban. The alleged ally of
America, Pakistan, now fears for its stability from the same threat. Both wars,
the longest since the Vietnam War, were and remain unpopular, but both were
intended to reduce the role of al Qaeda in the Middle East. That role has now
expanded into the Syrian civil war and was manifest in Mali.

His
response was to depend on isolated drone attacks in Yemen and elsewhere, and of
course his authorization of the assassination of Osama bin Laden for which he
took total credit despite the fact that the effort had begun in the Bush years.

In the
years prior to Benghazi-Gate we have now learned that Obama was using the
Internal Revenue Service to harass organizations associated with the Tea Party
movement, that identified themselves as “patriots”, or had a pro-Israel agenda.
In a similar fashion his Environmental Protection Agency was denying Freedom of
Information inquires to organizations opposed to its policies while granting
access to those who supported it.

In his
first term, his Department of the Interior pursued policies that denied access
to drilling for oil and natural gas on federally owned lands and while his
Department of Energy wasted billions on “renewable energy” companies
manufacturing solar panels no one wanted to purchase, going bankrupt one after
another. At one point the President advocated using algae—pond scum—as a source
of energy.

This is a
President who promised his “stimulus” program would put Americans back to work
and revive the economy.

This is a
President who has continued to tell Americans that global warming is the
greatest threat to the nation and the world despite a sixteen-year cooling
cycle in progress.

The
current scandals, derided as being “politicized” by Republicans, suggest that
impeachable offenses have been authorized and committed by branches of the
administration he leads. The current makeup of Congress in which the Senate is
still controlled by Democrats suggests that impeachment would be difficult to
pursue, but the 2014 midterm elections could and should change that.

The worst
of his offenses is Obamacare, described by members of his own party as “a train
wreck”, and a program to be administered by the IRS!

It is not
hyperbole to say Barack Obama is the worst President in the history of the
nation.

Ask the
millions of Americans who are still unemployed more than four years since his
first inauguration.

Ask the
millions of new graduates from colleges and universities who cannot find jobs
commensurate with their degrees.

Ask the
millions of Americans unable to retire due to the agonizingly slow recovery of
the economy.

And ask
the mainstream media, after years of ignoring his failures have suddenly
awakened to the seizure of Associated Press phone records after acting as mere
stenographers for his daily “talking points.”.

The
question is how long before he is either impeached or forced to resign as the dream
of “hope and change” has turned to hopelessness and the change has become the “transformation”
of America from the greatest economy the world has ever known to a debtor
nation disrespected by allies and enemies alike.

3 comments:

‘I don’t know’, ‘I can’t remember’, ‘I wasn’t responsible’, ‘I didn’t do that’, ‘I didn’t have any idea that this was going on’, ‘I have no recollection of that’; THOSE are the answers that Congress is getting from Obama’s administration, the people that run this nation!

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.